I am starting a serious, in-depth fantasy football league with some pretty cool/different rules. The league will be 12-team head-to-head with fairly standard rosters/scoring. It will be a salary cap league. Auction draft. Bids at draft day will be the cap hit for the players. You will sign players to single or multi-year contracts at that salary after the draft. Keep everyone signed into future years and get one re-sign of an expiring player every other season. Future drafts will essentially be "free agency" -- auction draft for expiring contracts/unsigned players. There will be a separate, five-round rookie draft. Rookies have set contracts and specific rules/restrictions on their use/eligibility. With rookies there will be RFAs, qualifying offers, compensation for offer sheets, and our own version of franchise tags.

This is a very brief description of the league. It will be $50 the first two years as an acknowledgement that there could be a few kinks in the rules. The expectation is that it will be increased to probably $100 for years thereafter as an acknowledgement of the depth of the league and the more-than-normal amount of time that it will likely require of the participants.

The auction draft will be live in my conference room for those in the Pittsburgh area, probably available for video conference (at least phone conference) for those out of town. I think we may need a couple more guys than we currently have, so I wanted to see if any lgpers are interested. Can't promise a spot, but let me know if you think you might be interested and want some further details (finalizing the bylaws right now).

i can keep any combination of these players beginning with a 15th and decreasing with each keeper. who would you keep? note: i am also keeping cam newton for a 7th, may keep vincent jackson for an 8th and fred jackson for a 13th. also note: i do not have a 2nd round pick

I'd keep Cruz unlless you think their aren't going to be many quality TE's available. Also if you can flex in a TE in those flex spots, Gates would have more value. My biggest concern with Gates this year is if he will stay healthy after being injured off and on the last two seasons.

I did my free Yahoo draft the other night, and I'm reasonably happy with my lineup...

D BreesP Rivers

C JohnsonS JacksonM BushS Ridley

G JenningsAJ GreenP HarvinD Heyward-BayT Smith

A HernandezB Celek

J Hanson

Pgh D

Maybe a bit weak at rb depth. I think ridley has potential to be a sleeper pick.

My money league drafts Saturday. I have the 2nd pick, so I'm thinking either Rodgers, or Foster/Rice... I'm tempted to go rb even if Rodgers is there, because there are more top qbs than top rbs. thoughts? Say Foster comes off the board first. Do I take Rodgers, or rice?

Yea more or less. I find drafting RBs, outside of AP and few others, to be risky business and as such I prefer to get backs who are threats in the passing game. My other pick at back was going to be Jahvid Best but between his injury and stuff I waited too long to pick him and a team's autopick took him. And besides, there will be 1 or 2 break-out backs that no one ever heard of that will have a good year this year.

Manning is ok at qb, but there is an element of risk. You have great starting WR, but no depth. Your RB's are really bad and you also have no depth. You would have been better off skipping over Fitz and getting a legit RB1. Lots of quality at WR... Also, why 2 kickers and D's? You're better off picking up something on waivers for those bye weeks than carrying 2 dead roster spots the entire year, especially with how bad your depth at other positions is. You should win the WR matchup every week, but you are gonna get KILLED at RB and Manning is probably just an average starter at this point.

Yea, you can take a chance on a few RBs in late rounds to break out, but I don't think Bush and Ingram highlight the top of those lists. Both have huge injury concerns and will likely be splitting carries throughout the season. You easily could have passed on Fitz or Green and grabbed a solid starting RB. There is a large drop-off after the top RBs but not one for the top WRs outside of Megatron.

Like I said, most of the running backs worth getting early gobbled up by my second pick, so it was either reach on a back or take BPA. Carries by backs are not important to me either. If he can catch he will be important and with Bush being the best offensive player on the Dolphins he will be a big target. I wanted Sproles instead of Ingram but the pick before I could get Sporles he was taken.

I took the WRs really to block other people who blocked my RB selections. I find RBs to be a thing of the past with the ushering in of the Passing era.

RB's are definitely less important. But you're still probably going to score at least 10 points fewer than your opponent every week at that position. Hopefully your receivers are good enough to make up the difference.

Also, I don't like Fitz in fantasy. He'll produce, but you don't really get value for him as a 2nd or low 3rd rounder anymore.

I generally agree with you Rylan. My disdain for drafting RBs has been well-documented in the LGP ff threads, I think. That said, I like for my top back to be better than what I value Reggie Bush as this year Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and take a RB with a better (BPA) WR on the board.

Peterson should be a 2nd or 3rd rounder in most drafts. Mjd probably goes in rd 2, as well. Your top 3 are gonna be Foster, rice, and shady. Then you have about 10-15 guys between them and Reggie Bush... You basically have 2 rb4's starting

Kraftster wrote:I generally agree with you Rylan. My disdain for drafting RBs has been well-documented in the LGP ff threads, I think. That said, I like for my top back to be better than what I value Reggie Bush as this year Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and take a RB with a better (BPA) WR on the board.

I gambled on a couple picks and missed out. I wanted Darren McFadden but he was taken a couple of picks before my AJ Green pick as was AP. Frank Gore, Jamaal Charles, Michael Turner and Trent Richardson were all taken between my 3rd Pick and 4th round pick. Frank Gore is going to lose a lot of carries this year. Jamaal Charles was a 1 year wonder. Michael Turner is so inconsistent that I didn't see him as worth a 3rd and Trent Richardson was going to be my 4th rounder but he was taken directly in front of me.

And with the value of having 3 number 1 WRs versus an average RB seems like a wash to me. I agree my RBs are atrocious. But I generally do not have the same RBs at the end of the season that I did at the beginning.

And besides, Peyton Hillis and Johnathan Stewart burned me so badly last year that I don't even care about RBs anymore haha.

not too bad. RB is a bit weak, but not enough to really hurt you. i love percy harvin in fantasy football. ridley is my personal sleeper, and great as at least a rb4. your stafford to megatron plays will be great on the weeks they connect, but you might be screwed on the weeks they don't. should be a playoff team either way.